Gingerbread White Chocolate Blondies

I found this recipe last year before Savannah's baptism. I made lots of treats that day, but these were my favorite!

Recipe from http://www.melskitchencafe.com

2 ¾ cups plus 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1 ¼ teaspoons baking soda
1 ¼ teaspoons salt
1 ¼ teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground ginger
¼ teaspoon ground cloves
1 ¼ cups (2 ½ sticks) butter, room temperature
1 ¼ cups packed light brown sugar
½ cup plus 2 tablespoons granulated sugar
2 large eggs plus 1 egg yolk
1 ¼ teaspoons pure vanilla extract
1/3 cup unsulfured molasses
1 ¾ cups white chocolate chips
Nonstick cooking spray

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Whisk together flour, soda, salt, and spices.

In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment (or with a hand mixer), beat butter and sugars on medium-high speed until creamy and pale, about 3 minutes. Add eggs and yolk one at a time, scraping down sides of bowl as needed. Add vanilla and molasses and mix on medium speed until combined.

Add flour mixture on low speed until combined. Stir in white chocolate.

Spread batter evenly into prepared 13x9 pan and bake until golden around edges and toothpick comes out clean, about 25 minutes. Let cool completely in pan; cut into 24 squares. Blondies can be stored in airtight containers at room temperature up to 1 week.

Pumpkin Cupcakes with Caramel Frosting

I am eating one of these as I type this. This recipe came from a long ago roommate, Aubrey, and started as pumpkin bars with cream cheese frosting, which is a delightful dessert. I have a little daughter, however, who is totally into the cupcake craze. She requested cupcakes, so cupcakes it was. And I like cream cheese frosting, but I sometimes don't want it so a while ago I tried these with caramel frosting and I really like that combination.

Pumpkin Cupcakes (or bars)

4 eggs
2 cups sugar
1 cup oil
2 cups pumpkin puree
2 cups flour
1 tsp. salt
2 tsp. soda
2 tsp. cinnamon

Blend eggs, sugar, and oil. Stir in pumpkin. Sift together flour, salt, soda, and cinnamon. Add to egg mixture. Pour into greased or lined cupcake pan or greased jelly roll pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes.

Caramel Frosting

1/2 cup butter
1 cup brown sugar
1/4 tsp. salt
6 Tbsp. milk
3 cups powdered sugar, sifted

Melt butter. Stir in brown sugar and boil while stirring for 2 minutes. Remove and add milk. Return to heat and bring to full boil. Set aside to cool for 20 minutes.

Spudnuts

The other night, I made 112 donuts. No, that's not a typo. Every now and again I actually do have a productive day. But don't worry, I did not eat all 112 donuts myself. We had a little party with our neighbors. It was quite fun and the donuts were delicious. I've been making this recipe for a few years and it does cut down okay (I've quartered it). But, if you're going to all the effort of making donuts, why not have a party?


Spudnuts
(makes 100-120 donuts)

1 cup shortening
2 cups mashed potatoes (I use instant because sometimes mine are lumpy - shh!)
4 cups lukewarm milk
5 eggs, beaten
1 cup sugar
2 Tbsp yeast dissolved in 1/2 cup warm water
1 1/2 tsp. salt
12 to 15 cups flour
1/2 tsp. lemon extract

Scald the milk with the shortening (at first it will seem like they aren't going to come together, but they will - just keep stirring). Let this cool for a bit (15-20 minutes). While it is cooling, dissolve yeast in water. To the milk mixture, add sugar, salt, and enough flour to make a thin batter, about the consistency of cake batter. Add the mashed potatoes, beaten eggs, dissolved yeast, and lemon extract. Add enough more flour to make a soft but workable dough (I usually use about 13 cups total). At this point, I divide the dough into two large bowls to let it rise - you would need a giant bowl to leave it in one. Let rise until doubled then punch down. Then let rise until doubled again. After the second rise, roll dough out to about 1/4" thick and cut out in donut shapes (either with a donut cutter or with two circle cutters - the smaller one should be quite small). You will probably want to roll the dough out in several batches - the entire thing is a little unwieldy. Place the cut donuts on cookie sheets or any large platter to allow to rise another time. After an hour (or so), drop donuts in hot oil (375 degrees), raised-side down. Turn once. Remove from heat and drain briefly on a cookie rack then dip in glaze (I do a ratio of about 1 cup powdered sugar to 2 Tbsp water - you can also add a little cocoa or maple flavoring) or just powdered sugar. I served these with cider and for one night, I was the most popular girl in the neighborhood!

Grandma Donna's Cheesecake

When I was a girl, my mom and grandma frequently made this dessert. I am pretty sure I haven't had it since I moved away from home. It had been a while. We usually ate this with store-bought cherry pie filling as the topping. Since my garden is bursting with strawberries, I made a simple strawberry syrup/glaze instead. I like baked cheesecake, but they are a little too rich for me. This dessert is lighter (relatively speaking) and I like that the crust is not the traditional graham cracker crust. It uses nuts and usually I am not a nut person (at all), but I really like this crust.



Crust:

1 3/4 cups flour
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 cup chopped walnuts
1 cup butter

Mix together and pat into a 9x15" pan. Bake at 400 degrees for 12-15 minutes. Remove from oven and crumble crust and then pat into pan again. Let cool.

Filling:

8 oz. pkg cream cheese, room temperature
1 cup powdered sugar
2 pkg. Dream Whip, prepared according to directions on package

Beat cream cheese until smooth. Add prepared Dream Whip and powdered sugar and blend together well. Spread over crust.

Topping:

Use canned fruit toppings, pie fillings, or make your own. I made mine using approximately 2 cups strawberries, 1/4 cup sugar, and 1 tsp. cornstarch blended with 1 tsp. water. I brought the mixture to a boil and then reduced the heat and let it simmer until it became a little bit thicker.

Three Meat Stromboli

Like most of my recipes, this is a combination of a couple of different recipes I've used for stromboli in the past. I like the combination of spices in this version and the dough is quite simple. Don't let your dough rise or it will have hollow pockets and is a bit weird.

Bread Dough:

2 1/2 cups flour
1 Tbsp sugar
1 Tbsp oil
1 tsp salt
1 Tbsp yeast dissolved completely in 1 cup warm water
1 egg

Dissolve yeast in water. Add remaining ingredients and knead either by hand or in stand mixer for a couple of minutes (3-5). Roll out dough on floured surface into a rectangle shape (about 12x18").

Stromboli Toppings:

1/4 pound pastrami
1/4 pound deli ham
1/4 pound pepperoni
1/4 pound provolone
1 cup shredded mozzarella
1/4 cup Parmesan
1 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp oregano
1/4 tsp dried parsley
1/4 tsp pepper


Arrange toppings over rolled-out dough (in no particular order). Roll up dough and tuck eggs under. Lightly beat egg. Smear egg over the top of the dough (or gently use a pastry brush - I like smearing myself). Bake at 350 degrees for 25-30 minutes (until dough sounds hollow). Let sit a few minutes before serving.

I have used this stromboli dough for lots of types of stromboli. This is my favorite, but I've also really like chicken-alfredo stromboli or just a simple pepperoni and mozzarella combination.

Frosted Banana Cookies

I got this recipe from my little sis, Karlee. She got it from her roommate's mom when she was in college. I really like it and sometimes make extra frosting because the frosting is sooooo good.

3/4 cups softened butter
3/4 cups brown sugar
1 egg
2 mashed bananas
2 cups flour
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp soda

Cream butter and sugar. Add egg and blend well. In alternating additions, add dry ingredients (sifted together) and bananas. Bake at 350 degrees for 10 minutes.

Frosting:

1/4 cup sweetened condensed milk
6 Tbsp. brown sugar
1/4 cup butter

Bring to a boil, stirring constantly. Remove from heat and add powdered sugar to desired consistency and a dash of vanilla. Stir in the powdered sugar a little at a time to make it less lumpy. I say less lumpy because I almost never get it totally lump-free. It still tastes delicious, though.

S'Mores Cookies

Last fall, I spent a few weeks in North Dakota administering reading tests to kids on the reservations there. North Dakota was a pleasant surprise for me - not at all how I had pictured it. It was beautiful - lots of rolling hills, wide open skies, little towns with old churches in the center, and lots of beautiful farmland. I loved the acres and acres of sunflower fields (who wouldn't?) and the wheat fields broken up every couple of hundred feet by tall rows of trees planted as a windbreak by the pioneer settlers. Loved it. I hope I get to go back someday. I'm pretty sure I could live there quite happily.

At one of the schools we visited, the reading coach had made some S'Mores Cookies and shared them with us. They were sooooo good. Her family owns a large organic flax farm and she had put flax in them, so when I made my own version, I included it as an ingredient. I tried a few recipes for these cookies that I found online, but they didn't work very good - I think maybe because of the altitude where I live. I got a little frustrated last fall and gave up, but I was thinking about them this week and gave it another try. So this is what I came up with and it worked really good this time:


S'Mores Cookies

1 cup butter
3/4 cup brown sugar
3/4 cup white sugar
2 eggs
2 tsp vanilla
2 cups flour
1 1/2 cups graham cracker crumbs, coarsely chopped (you want big chunks in there)
1/2 cup milled flax
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
2 cups chocolate chips
about 1 cup miniature marshmallows
1 large Hershey bar, chopped in pieces

Cream butter and sugars. Add eggs and vanilla and mix together. Sift flour, graham cracker crumbs, flax, baking soda and salt in a separate bowl and slowly add to creamed mixture. Stir in the chocolate chips. Drop by spoonfuls onto ungreased cookie sheet and bake at 375 degrees for about 7-8 minutes. Remove from oven and quickly place 3 -4 pieces of chocolate bar and 3-4 marshmallows into each cookie. Return to the oven and cook another 3-4 minutes. Cool on a wire rack. Makes about 4 dozen cookies.

Crock Pot Pork and Potato Stew

This is one of my favorite soups. The pork is so tender, it's unbelievable. Plus, it's a crock pot recipe, and is best if you start it early in the day. That's great, because my day's usually deteriorate into craziness as dinnertime nears. I got this recipe from a friend of mine, at our monthly "cooking club."

1 T. oil
1 lb. pork tenderloin, cut into cubes ( I usually use 2 pork tenderloins--I'm serious, the pork is really good! Plus, my kids tend to pick out mainly the meat.)
1 cup sliced carrots
1 cup sliced onions
4 medium potatoes, cubed
3 T. chicken bouillon
4 1/2 cups water
1 T. cider vinegar
3 T flour
2 cups thinly sliced cabbage

Season cubed meat with salt, pepper and garlic salt. Sear meat in hot skillet with oil. Make sure to only brown the meat, do not cook all the way. Add meat to crock pot, then dump in the rest of the ingredients. Cook on low 8 hour, or high 4 hours.